The invention relates to a chip remover for machines such as edging machines, turning machines etc., which perform cutting operations especially on metal workpieces. The chip remover has a screw rotating about its longitudinal axis, provided with spiral turns spaced apart from one another, while the free upper end of the screw projects into the chip discharge area of the cutting tool of the machine. The screw carries the chips away from the area around the tool to assure unhampered machining.
A chip remover of the kind described above is disclosed in the applicant's published German patent application DE-OS 3 345 041 as part of an edging machine for machining the edges of metal strips. In this chip remover the chips produced at the tool are withdrawn by means of a rotating spiral or screw. In this case, however, it can easily happen that the chip curls will roll with the screw without being displaced by it. According to the published patent application referred to above, this effect can be prevented by mounting a guide or a rod beside the screw, but even this arrangement has not proven sufficiently reliable in operation. In this arrangement, the rolling of chips with the screw in the upper part of the latter is largely prevented, but in the bottom part of the screw chip pile-ups can occur since the chips do not reliably separate from the screw after reaching its bottom end. This results in increased wear, or even in jamming of the chip remover and necessitates constant supervision as well as timely manual intervention each time a chip pile-up occurs. Under some circumstances the machine must be stopped for safety reasons.
The problem is, therefore, to create a chip remover, of the kind described above, which will avoid the above-described disadvantages and will assure a reliable, disturbance-free and interruption-free removal of chips without the need for manual intervention. The chip remover must furthermore be resistant to wear and be adaptable to different machines and tools.